


The Big Picture

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Angst, M/M, Talk of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chester doesn't know why Rob stays with Mike. But there are some things in life you just have to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Big Picture

**Author's Note:**

> you could just let go and be lifted to the sky

There’s something about being high up, so detached from everything, that makes Chester feel like he has to open up. He says to Rob “Sometimes I used to walk around and pretend I’m somebody different.” He confesses, “I pretended I was a saint. I’d have long phone conversations with nobody about my underground dance group that didn’t really exist.”

“Pass me another beer.” Rob mutters, grouchily. “Heights freak me out.” It was his idea to come up here.

“Don’t worry. We’re far enough away from the side to be, you know, like, safe.”

It’s just a multi-storey parking lot, they’re not even that high up, but the breeze sweeps around them. Rob shivers ever-so-slightly and rubs at his bare arms. “Mike told me to wear a sweater but I had to have my own way.”

“Mike,” Chester says and swigs his beer, “is not your mom.”

Rob shrugs, “I love him.”

“I never implied that you didn’t. But don’t feel cold, just because he said you would. Feel warm, because you have to.”

Mike likes order. A place for everything and everything in his place. Brad says, when he was in high-school, Mike would label everything. Little post-it notes on everything he owned. Chester thinks that, if Mike went through another label phase, he’d label Rob as ‘My little lap dog’.

“I tried to jump off a building once.” Rob says, swigs his beer and smirks, “I got arrested for trying to break open the door to the roof before I could, though.”

Only Rob could fuck up like that and Chester can’t help but laugh “I’m glad.”

“You’re glad I did time?! Some friend...”

“No,” Chester says and picks at the label on his bottle, “I’m glad you didn’t jump.”

“Oh.” Rob says, “Me too.”

He’s probably lying, but that’s okay. Nowadays, Chester lies all the time. He even lies in his journal. He tells nobody that he’s happy, that his life is going great. It’s all lies because, really if he steps back and looks at the big picture, everything is far from fine here.

“I couldn’t jump.” Chester confesses. “That’s not how I want to be found. Overdose...suffocation. Anything, just as long as the people who love me don’t have to see me burned or cut open or splattered on the pavement.”

Rob nods, drains his beer and sends the bottle flying through the air and over the edge of the roof. If they listened carefully, they’d hear it smash as it hit the roof of a car parked below.

“If you’re with me when I die,” says Chester, “make sure I look respectable. You know, if there’s drugs make sure I don’t have like, coke nose. That’s so not cool.”

Rob nods again and pops the cap off another beer. He says, “I think Mike’s going to kill me.”

Looking at his watch, Chester murmurs with a frown “It’s not even midnight yet. He gave you a curfew?”

“No. But I think he’d kill me before I had time to plan my perfect suicide.”

This doesn’t really surprise Chester at all. Mike has become a jealous prick, hates Rob’s hanging out with Chester so much, says he’s a bad influence. Of course, Chester felt he was a brilliant influence on the younger man. Rob was so naïve when they first met, drunk and stupid in a bar for a mutual friend’s birthday. The mutual friend (Brad, back then he had his hair long and curly and looked like a hippy. Now he’s married, he has to cut it, or he’ll end up divorced) was dancing with an Asian guy, their hips pressed together. The jealous look painted on the face of the young man leaning against the bar told Chester that he and the Asian guy bumping and grinding with Brad were lovers.

(“I’m Rob. That,” he nods towards Brad and his dance partner, “is my boyfriend Mike.”

“Are you warning me?”

After a moment of thought, “...no.”)

That night, Chester dragged Rob into the bathroom and sucked him off. Rob returned the favour and returned to the bar, grinning at Mike who was glaring angrily. After that, Mike decided he hated Chester. After that, Chester decided he hated Mike just as much.

Mike’s motto is ‘what’s yours, is mine and what’s mine, is my own’. He will take, take, take and the only time he ever gives anything it’s his dick to some beautiful blonde bitch of a guy with bright blue eyes and blowjob lips. You know - the ones that were created by God to be wrapped around a cock. Those are the kind of guys Mike goes for so Chester doesn’t get his fascination with Rob.

“Why do you stay with him?”

“You stayed with your parents right?”

That’s right. Chester stayed with his parents well after he could have legally moved out. Even though his dad was an asshole and his mom a bitch and even though they forbid him from being gay and couldn’t stand how he didn’t get hard over girls in porno magazines. Even though his dad showed him how much being gay could hurt and even though he couldn’t walk straight for weeks he stayed.

Rob continues, “Some things you just have to do.”

Chester’s rapist dad had cancer. He stayed under their roof until he died, then he stayed until his mom overdosed on sleeping pills. He moved her from where she lay on the bathroom floor and tucked her into bed. Then he called 911.

There are some things you just have to do.

Chester says, “I want to kiss you.”

And Rob sighs, “That’s not a good idea.”

Rob’s right, it isn’t a good idea, but Chester shifts closer anyway. He presses his lips to Rob’s softly and the younger man seems startled, pulls back and whispers “You don’t have to be gentle.”

He is anyway, brushing their lips together softly before deepening the kiss briefly. The kiss tastes of beer and oppressed emotions and when Chester pulls away he rests his forehead against Rob’s lovingly.

Rob says “I love Mike.”

And Chester says “I know you do.”

Later, they’ll stagger back to the stairwell that reeks of piss and trash and they’ll cling to each other, giggling as they descend gracelessly down the stairs. They’ll lean on each other heavily and make their way to a phone booth, they’ll call for a cab and they’ll go home. Rob will go to Mike and Chester...he’ll go home alone.

But that’s okay because, right now, they have beer.

And the stars.


End file.
